1) Start the ventrilo program. Click on the Start button, click on Programs and then click on Ventrilo. This will display another menu option called Ventrilo that will start the actual program.

2) Click on the "->" button that is next to the first pulldown window called "User Name". This will open a new window where you can create a logon name to be used when connecting to a server.

3) Click the "New" button. This will open a small window where you can enter your logon name. The name you enter is entirely up to you. It can be your real name or a nick name, but preferably your GWJ Forum name ;).

4) Click the "OK" button. You can come back to this window and click on the help button later on if you want more detailed information about what the other options mean and how to use them.

5) Now that we are back to the main window click on the "->" button that is next to the pulldown window called "Server". This will open a new window where you can enter the details about the server you would like to connect to.

6) Click the "New" button. This will open a small window where you can enter a name that will describe the new server definition. The name can be anything you want it to be like: "My server" or "Joe's server". When entering a server name you don't need the quotes around it. These server names will show up in the main Ventrilo window.

7) Click "OK".

8) Click on the "Hostname or IP" input box and enter the server address v22.darkstarllc.com (those are lower case L's)

9) Click on the "Port number" input box and enter the servers port number 4018.

10) Click on the "Password" input box and enter the servers password as defined by the server administrator "mmmkay" (no quotes).

11) Click "OK" to return to the Ventrilo main window.

12) Click "Connect" to establish a connection between you and the server you just defined.

13) You should also click on the Setup button and configure all of the different options that control Ventrilo. This is very important when it comes to controlling the microphone or input source. Once in the Setup dialog click on the "Help" button. Be sure to read what all of the options are and what they mean. This is very important for the Voice page

13a) A good option to check is the 'Silent connections when in a channel' box under the Misc. tab. This will keep audio notifications of people who enter and leave your room, but you don't have to listen when the other 49 people on the server are getting on and off the server (griefers sometimes server hop... why? I have no idea, it's what makes them griefers...)

Darkstar Communications is the host of this server, and they've got a good Clan Pay system that allows a group of people to make donations to keep the server up and running. If you feel so inclined to make a donation, there is a GWJ Clan Pay website where you can log in and make a donation (minimum $5) directly to Darkstar, recommended max $25 (lots of people use this thing, no need for 1 person to bear too much burden!). To get an idea for donation size, with the plan we're on (50 user - $134.40/year), it ends up running about $11.20/month.

Thanks to many Goodjers generous donations, we are paid up through Feb. 2016. The Clanpay system won't turn down further donations, but they're truly not needed until the January timeframe of 2016. Thanks everybody!

-TheWalt

ps. To manage the Google-griefers on the Ventrilo server, I'm going to grant admin priveleges to 'tagged' GWJ members who aren't afraid to use the ban stick every once in a while. PM me if you're interested.

Gain: How much volume you feed into the compressor. Not really relevant unless everyone is too quiet, then you can turn this up a little; turning it up too much will sound EXTREMELY bad.

Attack: How fast volume change will happen. Example: setting this to 500 means that anything coming in will only be dropped in volume after a half a second. For vent this should be set as low as possible.

Release: How fast the compressor stops changing things. Not really that relevant with vent, setting it around 500 is good for voice material.

Threshold: This sets the point where we actually start changing what’s coming in. Whereas 0 is the absolute loudest you can have for an input, -60 is super quiet. Average users will probably come in somewhere around -25 to -15, with the occasional few being really quiet, which is why I have this set so low.

Ratio: How much any sound below the set threshold gets compressed and/or modified in the volume department. If you still want to hear SOME volume variation then set this lower (2-4). The higher you set it the closer in volume everyone will be.

Pre delay: Mostly just deals with processing; with computer and digital processors they can look ahead a few milliseconds to see what needs to be dropped in volume or changed before it actually comes through the speakers. Highest is ideal.

I am still ping spiking to the server. I have another vent server using the same host where I have no issues (though it might be a server in a different city). If this is still happening to everyone we should contact the host. At this point the vent server is almost unusable.

Can we have a "Star Trek Online" channel created for the upcoming beta and release. Maybe a few subchannels, say "Captain's Yacht", "Ten Forward", "Holodeck 3", "Engineering". Thanks.

Star Trek Online channel is a go! Let me know when you need sub-channels, and I'll add some - it seems like the server is very cluttery at the moment. I wonder if there are any channels that we can safely delete in the name of cleaning things up. Maybe there's a hidden feature that tells you which channels are getting used or something.

I have another request. We are trying to revive the Demigod night on Wednesdays and I would like the Demigod channel name changed from "Demigod" to "Demigod (Wednesday Nights)" if possible. Thanks.

Done.

I don't blame him for wanting to spread the word any way he can; as some of us were discussing in another thread recently, we could really stand to once again have a place where all of GWJ's online happenings is listed.

"At first I couldn't get it to work on the open mic setting and then later (under push to talk) it just stopped working while we were still playing. To get my mic working again both times I had to disable the mic in the sound settings and then re-enable it. Never had any problems using Skype or in game chat of any kind before, so it has to be an issue with how I have Vent set up or something--but why would Vent disable my mic for use in any other program?"

I'd like to request a Burnout Night channel. A couple of us have been joining for a weekly event.

For cleanliness sake you could probably delete Aion, America's Army, Darkfall, and Free Realms. I've never seen anyone use those, and if they do feel free to say so. Borderlands doesn't need Teams either.

"Duke Nukem Forever's switch from Quake II to Unreal technology took six weeks, but it will ultimately save months of development time."
@Holysh*tMatt

I'd like to request a Burnout Night channel. A couple of us have been joining for a weekly event.

For cleanliness sake you could probably delete Aion, America's Army, Darkfall, and Free Realms. I've never seen anyone use those, and if they do feel free to say so. Borderlands doesn't need Teams either.

All that is now done. If anyone's favorite channel got deleted, please say so and I'll put it back.

I also deleted all the sub-rooms for the Battlefield series of games, as I'm unaware of any time where we've had a BF2 game and a BF2142 game happening simultaneously.

I am having trouble connecting to the vent server this morning. It says it cant authenticate my name and password. My vent name is the same as my forum name.

edit: Nevermind I guess I needed to re-enter the password.

What- what do you need to do? I'm running Win7 and get the same message. I have the password mmmkay entered in the server section. I notice that when I enter the password I show six dots in the line, but after the authentication error the password line has eight dots in it.

This might not be the best place for this but here goes: (I'll move this to Tech/Help if that would be a better forum.)

I'm having trouble getting Vent to pick up my mic. I use it all the time with Skype, and Vista picks it up fine also. In Vent though I had to turn the sensitivity way up for it to even recognize I was talking; this was after 2 hours of trying to get it to recognize my mic at all. Any thoughts?